


A Welcome Guest

by songlin



Series: Powerful, Beautiful and Without Regret [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Kidnapping, M/M, Reichenbach Falls, Temporary Character Death, Vampire Sherlock, Vampires, Werewolf John, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 11:23:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songlin/pseuds/songlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“They should FEAR US! You could MAKE THEM! Really, how could you? You could rule them. Instead you’re...domesticated. Tamed. Practically castrated. Making up all these ridiculous pseudoscientific names so you don’t scare the cattle. Drinking from bags and asking to feed. Do the humans ask the cow before they eat a steak?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Wicked Wind

**Author's Note:**

> Theme: Shankill Butchers by The Decemberists

“Well, this is a turn-up, isn’t it?”

Sherlock’s fingers curl into a fist, the only indicator he is any less than composed. His fury burns cold. Cold is good. Cold is malleable. Exploitable. “Now, Jim, we’ve had this talk before.”

“Oh, but it wasn’t half this _good_ before! You’ve got yourself a _pet!_ Tell me, Sherlock, m’boy: how does he taste? It’s been _sooo_ long since I had a puppy; I can’t remember! Perhaps I’ll take a nibble while we wait.”

Sherlock’s face contorts. It’s a moment before he speaks, but he’s already given himself away.

“Oh, you kids. So sentimental about your pets.”

“What do you want, Jim?” He takes a single deep breath. “You’re not after revenge, it’s not your style. What are you doing?”

“It’s like I said, Sherlock. You’re in my way. The oncoming storm, I said.”

_“Please._ You’re not an organization anymore, and you’ve no market. We’ve moved on while you were asleep. There’s no market for men like you anymore.”

“THERE SHOULD BE!”

The phone’s speaker crackles and Sherlock jerks his mobile from his phone, startled. _He’s mad. The fire cost him more than time, it’s cost him his mind._

It’s almost a pity.

“They should FEAR US! You could MAKE THEM! Really, how _could_ you? You could _rule_ them. Instead you’re... _domesticated_. Tamed. Practically castrated. Making up all these ridiculous pseudoscientific names so you don’t _scare_ the cattle. Drinking from bags and _asking_ to feed. Do the humans ask the cow before they eat a steak?”

He’d been a bit unhinged, but this...

Jim sighs heavily. “Sorry. Sorry about that; I just get a little...emotional.”

_This madman has John._

“My country house. The one you burnt. Remember it?”

“Of course.”

“We’ll expect you at...say...ten?”

“Perfect,” Sherlock says.

“Oh, and Sherlock: I don’t subscribe to the notion of fashionable tardiness.”

The line goes dead.

\---

John comes to in the backseat of a small car with blacked-out windows. It’s a common enough modification these days, with all the sanguinarians with day jobs. Doesn’t stop the brief, spiteful hate for whoever thought up the damn idea. There’s a song playing, some operatic woman singing about remembering her but forgetting her fate.

_Jesus fuck, my head._

He’s on his stomach, hands bound behind his back with what feels like a zip tie. He tries to kick a bit. One’s free, but the other’s cuffed to what’s probably the door handle. And judging by the localized throbbing in his head, he was sedated by somewhat unconventional means--namely, concussion.

“Good morning, Johnny boy!”

John twists his head. His head’s on the right side, so he can’t get a decent glimpse of the driver. The passenger, on the other hand, is leaning around his seat and beaming like a kid on Christmas, fangs at full.

“We’re going to have _so much fun.”_

“Are we?” he says. “Buy me a drink first.”

The man laughs and rubs his hands together. “Oooh, he’s got a bit of _bite_ in him!”

“Lean back here a bit further and see just how much.”

“Mmm, I can see why he keeps you.”

“I may be a bloody awful boyfriend, but I’m a _fantastic_ wife.”

“Sir,” says the driver.

Jim sighs. “Sorry, pet. Well, no, but...courtesies.”

He reaches over the seat. There’s a hypodermic in his hand. John thrashes, but it’s not a large car and he hasn’t got a lot of space to move. There’s a sharp pain in his thigh, and suddenly struggling gets a sight harder. John sinks back into unconsciousness, as the man tosses the needle out the window, humming along with the song on the radio.

\---

Sherlock runs the twenty or so miles to the site that had seen Jim Moriarty die. It had been a church for a time, but it had been abandoned for some years now.

_Extraneous theatrics._ Sherlock loathes nonessentials.

He sniffs. He can pick out John’s smell immediately, warm and alive but tainted with the sick smell of drugs. It triggers a flare of something hot and overwhelming inside of him, but when he opens the doors of the church he is calm again.

John is tied up to the cross at the front of the church. With his wrists lashed to the arms and wearing nothing more than the shorts he’d picked up off the floor that morning, the imagery is obvious.

Jim is perched on the altar, legs swinging.

“Oh, luv,” he sighs, “do stop playing with that in public.”

Sherlock draws John’s revolver from his pocket. “I confess, gun safety is John’s area.”

Jim cocks his head and smirks. “I can tell. Treated bullets, even. Impressive. You can keep that if it makes you feel better.”

A single red dot focuses directly in the center of John’s forehead. He groans and shakes his head, trying to clear it.

“Now.” Jim claps his hands together. “Business.”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

“Oh, you don’t need to. You know where I’m going.”

“Of course,” he says calmly. “You said so in the car.”

“Oh, you were paying attention?”

“‘They should fear us. You could make them,’” Sherlock quotes.

“Full marks. To the top of the class with yer.”

“You’ve had two years. You’ve got Baskerville Hall now for the aftermath, when the entire world is hunting you down.”

“Sherlock,” John says, blinking hard. “What--”

“How many locations?” Sherlock asks. “What are you focusing on? The political: Parliament, Congress, the UN? The emotional: schools, hospitals?”

“Oh my _God.”_

Jim shrugs. “I thought an even mix best. All across the world, hungry and _raring_ to go. It’s a new day.”

“Unless,” says Sherlock.

He smirks. “Unless. You choose otherwise.”

Sherlock’s eyes widen. He gasps, just once, a small, silent inhalation.

Jim ticks them off on his fingers one by one. “You. John. Roughly...seven thousand humans worldwide.” He grins. “Have two.”

“Fantastic,” John says. He’s still slurring his speech a bit, but he seems lucid. “I pick me.”

“No,” Sherlock snarls.

“Please, Sherlock. Of the two of us, I’m the only one who’s not functionally immortal.”

_“This is not under discussion,”_ he snaps.

Jim giggles. “Oh, _yes,_ this was a _good_ idea. It’s even better than I thought!”

Sherlock snarls, launches forward, seizes him by the lapel, drags him off the altar table and jams his gun up under his chin. “What if I choose _you?_ You’ll never get the chance to send the go-ahead.”

“Oh, Sherlock,” Jim sighs. “You’ve got it topsy-turvy, sweet. There _is_ no go-ahead. Here’s how it’s going to work. You choose. My friend upstairs sees you choose. He can’t hear a word of this, by the way, in case you were considering something silly like trying to talk _him_ down. The only way he’ll call off the troops is if he sees one of you drop. No codes. He has to see you hit the ground.”

Sherlock drops him and stumbles backwards.

_“Don’t you fucking dare!”_ John shouts.

The gun is heavy in Sherlock’s hand.

“That’s the ticket,” Jim says.

Sherlock raises the revolver and presses it to his temple.

_“DON’T!”_

“Yes, yes, YES! It’s the only way, pet! Kill yourself, and they walk free. You’ve got to; I certainly won’t.”

The words take half a second to process.

Then Sherlock drops the gun to his side and chuckles.

Jim’s wild grin sinks. “What?”

Sherlock tips his head back and laughs and _laughs_.

_“What did I miss?”_

Sherlock smirks. “‘I certainly won’t’? So there is a code. More likely a signal, considering the lack of verbal contact.”

Jim sighs. “And you think you can force me? You think you can do that? Really?”

Sherlock frowns as if thinking. “Yes. I do. And so do you.”

“Nah.” Jim shakes his head sadly. “Not anymore. You’re domesticated.”

Sherlock steps close, the gun hot and heavy at his side. “I may be domesticated,” he hisses, low and harsh, “but do not think for _one_ _second_ that I am _tame.”_

Jim squints up into his eyes. His face relaxes, goes quiet with amazement. “My God,” he whispers. “You’re not, are you? After all this time.” He holds out a hand, beaming. Sherlock takes it with a frown. “Bless you, Sherlock Holmes. You were the best thing in all my years. _Thank_ you.”

He raises his hand, two fingers in the air.

“Two minutes,” he says.

Sherlock does not even see the laser sight, just the splatter of blood as the treated bullet punches through Jim Moriarty’s cranium. He recoils with a shout.

_Two minutes. Not enough to--not enough to ANYTHING--_

“What did he say, Sherlock?” John demands.

Sherlock’s breathing hard. It’s an old habit, hard to break even now that he only breathes part-time.

“He said I have two minutes.”

John thrashes at the ropes tying him to the cross. “God _fucking_ damn it! _Fucking do it already!”_

Sherlock steps forward as if drugged.

“It’s okay,” John says. Sherlock can see it in his eyes: it is, he’s willing to die for this. “It’s okay. I’m okay. This is fine.”

Sherlock catches his face and kisses him. He counts the seconds, and wishes John didn’t taste so much of drugs. John should never taste of drugs.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “For everything. I’m sorry.”

He raises the gun. John shuts his eyes.

“It’s fine. It’s all fine.”

Sherlock pulls the trigger.


	2. The World, In its Cold Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It was supposed to be you. _Fuck_ you, you utter bastard, it was supposed to be you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme: Mercedes Lullaby & Pan’s Labyrinth Lullaby by Javier Navarrete

John’s shite at funerals.

Grief, in his opinion, is a private matter. John’s not one for all this group crying and carrying on and telling stories about the deceased. It’s uncomfortable, grates against his nerves like scratchy wool on bare skin.

So he skips Sherlock’s.

Instead, he goes after, when everyone else has gone home. He finds the grave near the edge of the cemetery and folds his arms over his chest.

There are things he’s supposed to say now. He knows this because he watches telly, and because his therapist says so, and because despite truly loathing them he’s been to a fair number of funerals in his time. Things like “I owe you so much.” He tries to bring those words to his lips, but that’s not what comes out in the end.

Instead, what he says is: “Fuck you, Sherlock.”

He chokes a little, swallows hard.

\---

John must’ve stayed tied up for at least five minutes or so before the police and ambulances and Mycroft pull up outside the church, sirens screaming. He vaguely registers that Sherlock must have had the sense to contact someone before he came for help to have arrived, and so quickly. Equally numbly, he lets the paramedics cut the zip-ties binding him to the cross and guide him outside. His wrists are scraped raw. Had he been trying to fight his way free? He must have.

“My friend, you’ve got to--he’s my friend--”

They sit him in the back of an ambulance, wipe the blood off his face and give him a shock blanket and a pair of scrubs. He puts the scrubs on, because he remembers he was still wearing nothing but his shorts. After all, he was snatched before he could put on clothes or brush his teeth or leave Sherlock--

\--and now he can’t.

John looks at the shock blanket in his hands and feels something hot and tight rise up in his throat.

\---

“It was supposed to be you. _Fuck_ you, you utter bastard, it was supposed to be you.”

\---

He catches a glimpse of Mycroft through the crowd of flashing lights, standing in the darkness and safety inside the church. His eyebrows are drawn down and there’s a tightness at the corners of his mouth that was almost like pain, but John can’t bring himself to care.

He looks down. There’s still blood on his hands and he can’t be sure whose it is.

He’s fighting his mind’s pull away from London, back towards Afghanistan, because it’s the only reference point he’s got for friends blowing their brains out across John’s face. It’s not any easier than it was the first time, which is about nine kinds of unfair. If anything, it’s _harder_.

John looks at the shock blanket again and laughs until his eyes are stinging and his face s hot and damp.

\---

He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes.

“I was supposed to--get old and ugly and rusty in the bones, while you stayed strong and beautiful--dangerously beautiful, the way you are...were. It’s selfish, this, but...I didn’t want to--to lose you. I was never supposed to have to. You’re a maddening, infuriating tosser, and you didn’t know how to act like a normal fucking person half the time, and you were the best--the very best man I’ve ever known.”

John pauses, because his throat’s clenched tight again and he needs to get enough air to speak.

“I owe you-- _everything.”_

He allows himself a minute--just the one, and then he straightens, nods curtly, and turns.

\---

Mycroft does not attend his brother’s funeral either. He does not believe in mourning potentialities. Seize the moment, if you will.

In Mycroft’s case, that means eight hours of surgery to extract a bullet treated with silver from his brother’s frontal lobe, burying him six feet underground and hoping against all hope that he will rise. It took Jim Moriarty a century.

So Mycroft waits, and Mycroft hopes.


End file.
